North Star Writers Group

You see, back in those days, grade school teachers always called on kids in alphabetical order when it came time to stand up and answer questions in class.

If your last name was Batz you always were called real early.

But, if your last name was, say, Zimmerman, you hardly ever got called on to stand up and answer a question in front of the entire class, because most teachers lost interest in those so-called “pop quizzes” after six, maybe seven questions.

Even if a teacher did call a lot of names during a particular quiz, the kids whose names started with X, Y or Z always got easier questions than those kids whose last names started with A, B or C.

“Bobby Batz,” the teacher would say. “Please stand and name every single U.S. president and what state he was from.”

While I was sweating that out, Leroy would be hunkered over his desk writing love notes to pig-tailed Paula Chapman, the prettiest girl in our fourth grade class.

To my knowledge, Leroy Zimmerman was never even once called upon to answer a tough question in that class.

Come to think of it, he never had to clean blackboard erasers on the school fire escape in the dead of winter, either, because that was another task that was usually handed out by teachers on an alphabetical basis.

I was so envious of Leroy that I devised what I thought was a brilliant plan to turn things around in my favor.

“Mom,” I said one afternoon after returning home from school. “Do you think we could change our last name?”

“Why?” she asked, eyeing me over her toasted cheese sandwich.

I explained my Leroy-based dilemma, then added, “If our last name was Zygowski or even Young, or Vincent, there would be a lot less pressure on me at school.”

Mom leaned across the table and took my hands in hers.

“I really don’t think it’s possible, honey, but I’ll ask your father when he gets home from work.”

My heart dropped to my knees because I knew my father would never condone something like that, since he was incredibly proud of his German ancestry.

Time and again during my boyhood years, I listened to him tell stories of how my great-great-great grandparents had fled Germany with only the clothes on their backs and a ring of three-week-old bratwurst to start new lives in America.

When Dad got home from work that evening, I had butterflies the size of New Jersey in my stomach.

Three hours later when supper was over and the dishes were done, I walked into the living room where my father was sitting in his favorite chair and watching the “Gillette Friday Night Fights.”

“Dad,” I said, my voice quavering. “I have a favor to ask you.”

“Go ahead, son,” he replied. “Ask away.”

“Do you think we could change our last name so I won’t have to answer so many questions in school?” I said.

For a split second there was no reaction at all. Then Dad turned slowly from the small screen of the Philco TV, gazed at me and replied, “No.”

Then he turned back to the TV where two boxers whose names I don’t recall were pummeling each other, and my brief fling at establishing a new identity for myself was over.

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